SAN FRANCISCO -- Asiana Airlines Flight 214 was flying significantly slower than it should have been in its final descent, and the pilots scrambled to abort the landing just moments before it crash-landed, federal investigators said Sunday, the first concrete details about the final moments of the doomed flight to emerge.

And in a horrific revelation, San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault said his office is investigating the awful possibility that one of the two Chinese schoolgirls who died in the crash Saturday at San Francisco International Airport might have been run over by an emergency vehicle racing to the scene.

As federal investigators sift through wreckage and data to determine what went so tragically wrong for the Boeing 777 jetliner in those final seconds, the initial analysis of the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder showed the plane was "significantly below" the intended landing speed, said National Transportation Safety Board head Deborah Hersman on Sunday. That was just before the aircraft, guided by a pilot who was making his first landing in a Boeing 777 at SFO, clipped the edge of a seawall in front of the runway, leaving two 16-year-olds dead and others critically injured.

But while those are clues about the possible cause of the crash, Hersman emphasized that investigators are drawing no conclusions so soon into what will be a lengthy probe.

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"It's too early to rule anything out," Hersman said at a press conference.

But one certainty already had come into focus: This could have been much worse.

Survivors were being treated Sunday for injuries ranging from paralysis to fractured sternums to severe "road rash." But officials expressed amazement that more people didn't die.

"I don't want to discount that lives were lost, that people were critically injured," said San Francisco Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White. "But it is nothing short of a miracle that we had literally 123 people walk away from this."

Emergency personnel began arriving at the site just three minutes after impact, even as flames were beginning to flicker from the fuselage, Hayes-White said. Foucrault said he hopes an autopsy conducted Sunday will determine if one of the schoolgirls died from injuries sustained in the crash or from being struck by a rescue vehicle.

Of the 307 people onboard, 182 were transported to hospitals by rescue workers. Dr. Margaret Knudson, the chief of surgery at San Francisco General Hospital, said that 17 people remained hospitalized there Sunday, including six in critical condition.

A spokeswoman for Stanford Hospital, which treated 55 patients, said Sunday that two people still are in critical condition. Seven children who were admitted to Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, which is part of Stanford, were in good condition.

The events before impact took center stage Sunday.

It appears the plane was just seven seconds away from touching down when the crew realized that a disaster was unfolding. A crew member issued a call to increase speed.

When the pilots tried to accelerate, a stall warning sounded, four seconds before impact. The crew requested a "go-round" -- or aborted landing -- just 1.5 seconds before the crash. But it was too late.

The plane slammed down on the airport's runway 28L with what witnesses described as a loud thud at 11:27 a.m. The tail was sheared off by the sea wall and the plane veered off the runway.

Before the approach, Hersman said, there was no indication on either of the two "black box" recorders that the plane was having trouble.

The agency also will be looking into the fact that the ground-based navigational "glide slope" system on 28L had been inoperable since June due to construction to lengthen the runway.

But Hersman said planes were cleared Saturday for a visual approach, which means "you do not need instruments to get into the airport. It was a clear day with good visibility."

The system, said retired United Airlines co-pilot Fluge Schoendienst, of Pleasanton, "is just another backup that can help you determine how high you are. ... There should have been no problem whatsoever."

Asiana Airlines President Yoon Young-doo apologized to victims and their families and defended the South Korean pilots as "skilled" veterans. But a spokeswoman for the airlines said later that while pilot Lee Kang-kook had nearly 10,000 hours of flying experience, he had only 43 hours with the Boeing 777 and still was in training for the long-range plane.

"He was assisted by another pilot who has more experience with the 777," the spokeswoman told Reuters.

In China, government officials identified the two people who died as Ye Mengtuan and Wang Linjia, both 16-year-old students who were part of a youth group of 29 students and five teachers bound for the San Fernando Valley-based West Valley Christian Church and School camp.

Of the 291 passengers onboard, 141 were Chinese. The flight originated in Shanghai and stopped in Seoul before heading to San Francisco on the nearly 11-hour journey.

Hayes-White said about 225 emergency personnel were at a crash site where passengers were forced to make a dramatic escape, sliding down emergency inflatable ramps as flames spread through the fuselage.

"The passengers deserve a lot of credit," Hayes-White added. "We'll be hearing some amazing, heroic stories in the days following."

Hersman said investigators will be at the site for at least a week.

Heather Somerville, David DeBolt, Eric Kurhi and Katie Nelson contributed to this report.

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